March - Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers

I apologize for the long delay, this school year is flying by. Our chapter for March is Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers. I will post April's chapter at the beginning of the month, but because of my delay, we can of course continue to discuss March's topic as well. 

March's chapter is all about activating prior knowledge through cues, questions and advance organizers. Cues and questions are excellent tools that a teacher can utilize to activate prior knowledge, expand students' understanding of a topic, and also help the students spark an interest in the subject. It is also vital to assessing the students' prior knowledge before beginning a new subject. Here, everyone should share examples of cues or questioning that they use in class, maybe even in a specific context. 

The chapter also addresses advance organizers that help students utilize their background knowledge when learning new material. Advance organizers are great when using information that is extremely disorganized, as it can help students begin to organize old information with new information that they are exposed to. The chapter introduces three different kinds of advance organizers, Narrative, Skimming, and Graphic. 

Perhaps everyone could share examples of how they activate prior knowledge through activities that are introduced in the chapter, or other scaffolding activities that are not discussed in the book. 

An excellent activity to activate prior knowledge that many teachers are familiar with is a word splash, which works particularly well in a history class. The teacher writes one key word or broad term on the board and ask students to come up and write words that they think relate to the key word or broad term.

For example, last year I wrote "Civil War" on the board and asked students to write words that they thought related to the Civil War.

Civil War

Union

North vs. South

Slavery

Split

Confederacy

Southerners

Abe Lincoln

Gettysburg

Trench Warfare

These were some of the words that the students wrote on the board. From there, I was able to correct any misunderstandings, while at the same time assessing how much the students already knew about the Civil War before beginning formal instruction. Following a word splash such as this one, the teacher can then ask students to organize the information and begin to draw comparisons.

Similaraties and Differences

I found this chapter to be really useful. I would like to use the comparing 2 concepts with similarities and differences in helping students reinforce what they have learned as well as a study tool to help students prepare for their tests and quizzes. I found a couple of free analogy organizers on-line but had a hard time getting the PDF files to post. I found one analogy organizer on a website called teacher vision. The address is www.teachervision. fen.com and search for analogy organizers. Another interesting one that I found was comparing two concepts. It had the "New Concept" on the left side and the "Familiar Concept" on the right-hand side. Underneath that it had "Similarities" on the left side and "Differences" on the right. Underneath all of that in the center was "Summary of new concept". I would use this one to reinforce new concepts. Using analogies uses higher-order thinking skills and students seem to like it once it is explained to them. They like looking for the connection between the two items. It is another important tool in getting students to learn in a way they may not have used before. It stimulates new brain connections and strengthens those higher-order thinking skills.

Identifying Similarities and Differences

I really enjoyed this chapter! I was particularly intrigued with using analogies with students as a form of identifying similarities and differences. I have always known analogies to be comparing two related objects or ideas to something else but never though to use them in the classroom as a student/teacher-directed activity. Learning to read and understand analogies is such an important skill for students, as they are typically found on all standardized tests.

I co-teach a biology class and we have used analogies in comparing cell organelles to people or places. The responses we got from the students was impressive. One in particular still stands out to me. A group used ten organelles from the cell and compared them to the Boston Bruins hockey team! It was amazing!! Now, reflecting on this activity, the student really seemed to understand and enjoy it!


I found the graphic organizers in the chapter to be a great resource. I especially liked the following GO.

[ ] is to [ ]

relationship:___________________________

as [ ] is to [ ]

I also liked the GO for analyzing metaphors:

Metaphor: _________________________________

Literal:________________________
Abstract:_______________________
Literal:_________________________

February Topic - Identifying Similarities and Differences

Surprisingly, it is already February, so it's time to move onto our new topic, Identifying Similarities and Differences. For this month, perhaps everyone could share their general thoughts on the chapter, examples of graphic organizers that facilitate comparing and contrasting, or even student examples. Also, maybe teachers of the sciences or mathematics could share how they are able to incorporate similarities and differences in their disciplines where it might be difficult to do so.  

I found this chapter in the book to be especially interesting and useful. Similarities and differences are so frequently found in a subject such as History, that it is very beneficial to see the ways in which similarities and differences can be adapted, whether it is simply comparing and contrasting, or even have the students begin to create analogies. Of course the Venn Diagram is so commonly used and is effective, but I've also found that categorizing topics based on similarities is extremely effective in getting the students to understanding similarities and differences, especially when it comes to History. When asking students to categorize, it seems to work best when you provide the students with the categories and then allow them to select the topics that are appropriate. That way, they are forced to understand the topics' similarities before they are able to categorize them. Our next topic of study in U.S.I History involves many similarities and differences, so during that topic I plan to incorporate metaphors and analogies instead of relying on Venn Diagrams for comparing and contrasting. I'll make sure to post my findings and share how effective the activity was.

Homework

I really enjoyed this month's topic since it is a daily battle for me. I work in the "Instructional Support" room at the High School where students are given the oppportunity to start and even finish their homework during school after a small minilesson is conducted. Even when given the time and support, some students do not complete homework.

I am constantly asking myself why this is. Many times, teachers allow students to sit in class and not do it. There does not always appear to be any consequences for not completing assignments. I liked the idea of parents being contacted but many times, parents really don't care either. As long as their son or daughter gets a D and passes, they are okay with it. Less for them to deal with when they get home is their attitudes. In those cases, it is difficult, but not impossible, to help the student learn the importance of homework/practice.

In other cases, students do not complete homework because they have no concept of the skills needed to complete their homework. Maybe they don't know the content, maybe they don't have a quiet place to complete homework, maybe they are too embarrased to ask for help or maybe a combination of all those things. The point is that teachers need to step up and figure out what is preventing a student from being successful even if that requires more time and effort on the teacher's part.

I am going to share this chapter with my students and see if they can understand WHY they have to complete homework. Maybe we will even fill out several homework squares that are on page 65 to further their understanding of the purpose of homework.

Homework

This section was really interesting section to me, in that, I can't figure out how to get my kids to complete their homework!! After reading this section, I realize how important it is to make sure the kids know WHY they are doing the homework, and that doing it, can actually HELP them!!

I liked the teacher's idea from the text- She made sure that each student knew WHY they were completing the homework and WHAT they needed to know to complete the homework (p.65). I don't think that a high school student would take the time to fill out something like this every night, but maybe once in a while as a sort of reminder to them that what they are doing IS important!

Working with high school students within the SPED program, I have realized, that they are generally:
1. discouraged
2. frustrated
3. confused
with their homework, and most parents are not as invested in their child's education as I remember my parents being. (This is only a generalization, I know that this is not the case for every student) I would love to learn how to better work with parents regarding their role in their child's education.

I co-teach with one particular math teacher that has each student sign a contract at the beginning of the year stating that they know the homework policy. She explains to them the research on homework, how much they should have, and what they should expect to accomplish by doing their homework. There are also consequences. Students that miss more than three homework assignments in one term are given a detention and a letter sent home (to be signed and sent back) to their parents. Each subsequent missed assignment results in another detention. It seems to work for our kids. They very rarely miss assignments because they know the expectations ahead of time, and they know that there are consequences for not completing it!